The Evolution of our Dining Room Table

When we were first married, we had a glass table. I had it before we got married and it came with us. I’m not sure where it went after that, but we only had it the three months in Provo.

Then, we moved back to Carson and there was no dining area. We eventually got bar stools for the bar-counter top, but I don’t even know if we ate at the bar or if we just ate on the couch. It got pretty old pretty quick, but oh well, it was just the two of us.

Next came St George/Cedar City. My parents graciously gave us a round, oak table. It was just your normal 1990’s style round oak table with the tall back chairs that had thin beams down the back and a wagon wheel shape cut out of the middle. You know what I’m talking about.

Anyway, then came Provo, round 2. We had that table for the first four months, but then we ended up moving into married housing, which had a TINY kitchen/dining space. AND we met the love of our lives… IKEA. We found an outdoor patio table and folding chairs, and snatched the whole set up for $35, I believe. It was an awesome deal. I’m not sure how we got it so cheap but it was truly a blessing. We had this outdoor table (that had not touching slats across the top… think wood pallet style) and it was tiny, but worked just fine.

Fast forward a few years and we were in SLC, with the same slat table. Our friends, the Turners, were getting a new dining table and offered us theirs for free, bless their hearts. It was so nice to have a table with a solid, flat surface. This was great for a few years, and then we upgraded to another IKEA table that was rectangular and came with 4 chairs {at that point Donny was out of his high chair and the black table from the Turners only came with 3}.

This table has been great. A bit small, but no complaints from me. Donny did take a fork to it and destroy its smooth surface rather quickly, and I do a lot of crafts without caring to protect the table, so at this point it is covered with bits of paint and potholes. Still, it fit great in our new house and when its just us four, it works just fine.

Well, last Tuesday there was an oak table on sale in our Tremonton Classifieds. It was for $75, and I was disappointed that I didn’t have $75 for a new table. It was slightly larger than our table {with no paint!}. I was tempted to offer $50 because low-balling is the name of the game on Tremonton Classifieds, but I held off. Then the next day, she reposted it for $50! And even better, I didn’t see this until someone else had already offered $30 and then backed out! So, I got my new table for $30! I was so excited. It is solid and heavy and fits us plus two more EASILY. No more bringing the computer desk down when the missionaries come over for dinner!

There was only one problem: if I thought my old oak table was 1990’s, this was 1980’s oak. It was so so so YELLOW, and was definitely well used by a young family… similar scratches and marks to my old table. So, I decided to redo it. Welcome, Massive Project! I wanted to paint it all black and distress it, but didn’t want it to be this massive darkness in the room, so I started looking on the internet for some ideas. I came across a few that I liked, asked myself WWBPD? (What Would Brigitte Papa Do?) and then went to work. I painted the bottom/underbelly black and then wanted to stain/paint combo the top. Between Donny helping sand the top, Shey helping paint the top, and Nigel helping sand AND paint the top, we got the project done in a week, and I LOVE IT.

I already had the paints & the finishing wax, so this project cost me $30 for the table, $10 for the stain, $5 for painters tape, and $5 for sandpaper: $50 isn’t too bad for a brand new table! {I DID have to buy a new sander because mine died, so I guess technically it cost me $80, but I’m not counting the new sander in the cost.}

Here’s the before:

The underbelly of the beast is done. So grateful for homemade chalk paint so I didn’t have to strip/sand any of this!

And Donny posing with the half-finished project. Looking better already!

Here’s Nigel painting our first layer of diamonds after we sanded, and sanded, and sanded.

Here’s after painting the diamonds… no distress or stain yet. Nigel was impressed… he didn’t have much hope for me after my measuring skills didn’t work so well on our giant dry-erase calendars, but it came out pretty good!

And here’s the finished project!

See my sign I made last week, too?! I love that my dining room is finally coming together. Now I just have the giant half wall on that right side to figure out!

The stain came out a bit more red than I thought it would… I wanted it to match the chairs so I wouldn’t have to redo them, but no dice. So, I’ll just have to paint the chairs black, too. It shouldn’t be TOO bad… but it will have to wait a couple days till I forget how much I hate painting again! 🙂